Changes Ahead
12/28/93 – 12/28-94
While our kids, Meghan, Allie, and Sam were little 10, 7, and 4, I worked half-time, Dale worked time and a half, his summers spent in construction as a tradesman-carpenter in electrical, plumbing, and carpentry on assorted remodels or new homes. Each Christmas, I consulted Alan Douglas, Dale’s friend and employer, for tool suggestions. Alan directed me to the right store, exact machines and best prices, so for these years, Dale acquired new skills and skill saws or saws-all or jig-saws or drills or whatever a good tradesman needed. Little did we know at that time how these skills and skill saws would be used, but that is a story yet to come.
For one brief blip during my teaching career, I shared a fourth grade position with Jan Nutton. Jan taught Monday and Tuesday and I Thursday and Friday, while we shared Wednesday. It was quite an adjustment moving from high school to elementary, despite the fact that La Mesa was a science magnet school with field trips nearly every week. I delighted in teaching a variety of subjects and considered staying at fourth grade when the year ended.
Fourth grade children usually enjoy school, unlike teenagers, and they offer their teachers cards of devotion on random occasions or hug their teachers at moments of celebration or sorrow or boredom or giddiness. Not much triggers a hug, and initially, I struggled with the steady barrage of embraces, as this was so foreign from high school student behavior. I stood tall and immobile as one child after another lunged at me “hello,” “goodbye,” “good lunch,” or “nice break. ” Okay, that was weird—students marched in line –but not without the requisite contact. By high school, there is no marching except for ROTC, and hugs morph into high fives or slaps on the back or fleeting eye contacts, the latter the more typical. Elementary students gave wings to my heart every day. They tugged on my shirt, sweater, and sleeves. They hovered around my desk. They gave glittery, flowery cards, both girls and boys, cards unlike anything my husband has bestowed upon me, and he has given me plenty of cards. I received apples, oranges, pears and roses—for no reason. Dale is romantic, in a practical sense; his roses were the potted kind we added to our garden.
This year, we rushed to school or to day-care or to soccer practice or to swim practice (both of us), or wallowed in dirty laundry or clean clothes (mostly me), kept up with shopping and meals for five (me), maintained working vehicles (Dale), maintained plumbing or wiring or flooring or whatever the house needed (Dale), kept up with yard work (both of us), brushed and backwashed the pool (mostly me), bought clothes for growing children (always me)—all of which took hours of our days and weeks and weekends.
The dilemma of fourth grade verses high school hovered over my head for weeks, until I finally decided that high school anything was more stimulating than fourth grade curriculum; I returned to the high school campus and down the hall from Dale. It was a difficult decision—a melancholy for the sweetness of young children and their precious gifts for the mania of high school adolescents and their exuberance for life.
Love is Complicated 